Extra! June 2013

Anyone could have predicted the Boston Marathon bombing would receive the high-color, saturation-style coverage it’s gotten. The April 15 attack lends itself to all sorts of narratives U.S. corporate media love to explore: the ever-present “terrorist” threat, scary Muslims and their “networks,” the potential of new security technology. Still, it was hard not to be struck by the contrast between the attention devoted to the Boston bombing and that given to a disastrous explosion two days later in a Texas fertilizer plant. TV networks especially “seemed to decide covering two big stories was covering one too many,” as Mike Elk …

It’s hard to imagine news coverage of military regulations that excludes Pentagon officials, or a discussion of derivatives trading that leaves out Wall Street executives—those directly affected by policy outcomes. But that’s how corporate media cover the minimum wage story, according to a new study by Extra! that finds low-wage workers are largely excluded from the debate. The study surveyed nearly three months of coverage (1/1/13–3/24/13) in eight major U.S. media outlets, during a period when Democratic President Barack Obama was proposing an increase in the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour. Obama made his most prominent …

The brutal gang rape of a university student in Delhi last December out-raged the establishment media, which were quick to paint India as a nation plagued by deep-seated sexism and misogyny. The New York Times opined (12/29/12) that the rape reflected “an alarming trend in India” of “tolerat[ing] shocking abuse of women” who are “shamed into silence and callously disregarded by a male-dominated power structure” and therefore “never go to the authorities to seek justice.” The Times went on to lament that “women are routinely blamed for inciting the violence against them,” which is why “India must work on changing …

Nicholas Kristof’s column was almost entirely wrong or unsupported. Yet it turned out to be just the opening salvo of a series of high-profile news reports exposing America’s alleged plague of skyrocketing disability benefits.

When Extra! analyzed immigration reform coverage, the majority of sources from all networks were white male politicians born in the United States without personal ties to immigration. The voices of immigrants or activists were mostly absent.

Extra! June 2013

Gender Focus: For U.S. Media, Rape Culture Is There, Not Here
Delhi has ‘alarming’ power structure, Steubenville ‘promising’ young men
by Rania Khalek